Bubba Watson swing sequence: Breaking down his moves

November 30, 2016
Golf Tips

There might not be another swing like it and it’s certainly not one to mimic. Gary Alliss dissects his moves

Here we see the Floridian setting up to launch his drive ball into orbit. The noteworthy points are how narrow his stance is for a tall man with such power. Look how relatively little flex there is in his knees and how straight his trail arm (left arm) is, the elbow is virtually straight.

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His takeaway is certainly in one piece moving from his right shoulder; something I like, but look how wide and stretched away from his body his hands are, too wide for me and this would normally lead to a lack of co-ordination between arms and torso.

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Due to the width of his takeaway, his wrists are only just hinging as his hands reach shoulder height, really late. His shoulders have already turned 90° and his hips about 45°. Most players try not to overturn the hips on the backswing.

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Look how high his hands are, giving such an upright swing plane, that it is hard to imagine anything other than him skying the ball off the roof of his driver if he were a club golfer. Right heel lifted as an old 350lbs+ golfer may have to do, not a supreme athlete.

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Boy oh boy, note how exaggeratedly he has squatted, see how much knee bend there is now. Superbly impressive, is that his hips are now around 45° open whilst his shoulders are still near to 90° to the target line. It is no wonder that when he releases his angles through impact that he regularly hits 300+ yards. How is he so flexible?

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The plane has dropped from way above the orthodox in Pic 4 to below the perfect approach angle. Incredible wrist bend and look at those hips. Go back to Pic 1 and note the distance the visor peak is from the bunker in the distance, look at the difference now.

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Now Mr Watson has the shaft pointing parallel, now the club is perfectly positioned, but look at his feet, left heel rising, but so is his right heel, which causes his hips to move towards the ball and his knees to straighten, most undesirable.

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Impact finds our star up on the balls of both feet with quite straight knees. For most this would signal the kiss of death as their spines would be forced to straighten resulting in very wayward shots but Bubba is strong enough and sufficiently flexible to retain posture and deliver the club squarely.

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Up high onto his toes, which has to happen if he’s going to maintain spine angle yet return to his set-up height. Many good lady players swing like this, because women are generally more flexible, but lack physical hand and arm strength, so rising onto their toes allows them to swing wider and generate more clubhead speed.

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Just after impact but maintaining balance, extraordinarily. Look how the clubhead has flipped around his waist. Although we can’t see his wrists I can assure you this flippy wrist release is like turning the clock back to the small ball era of 1960s and even further back to hickory clubs. Quite amazing and entirely his own creation.

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Now Bubba is spinning around on the balls of his feet to achieve some semblance of balance. Most important to observe is his right wrist and arm. The wrist is bent backwards confirming the flip, whilst his right arm flatly refuses to rotate, because, if it did, nobody would have ever heard of Bubba, because every drive would result in a wild hook.

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Spinny feet, left leg not fully through, right arm desperately holding off the rotation, club twirling round his head, a touch Palmeresque from ‘61. Don’t copy Bubba unless you are striving to be a self-taught, gifted genius, but God bless him, long may he grace the fairways because golf desperately needs more characters.

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Bubba Watson swing sequence

This month we are looking at the swing of Bubba Watson, the big hitter from Bagdad, Florida, who has never taken a lesson off anybody except his dad when he was a very young boy.

It is an understatement to say that Bubba does it his own way, not only is it his own style, but much of what he makes work for him would be decried by the esteemed golfing gurus as, at best, unorthodox and, at worst, plain wrong. Unorthodox? Yes. Wrong? Well, yes, probably for a huge percentage of golfers, but not for our two-time Masters champion. So let’s take a look.

Our main picture shows Bubba in typical swashbuckling mode, a position unattainable, or undesired by most, we see a big hip clearance, upper body bending over and backwards more than is orthodox, a tight, highly delayed, wrist cock, usually more associated with iron play.

Plus, we can just detect him beginning to rise up on to the balls of his feet, unusual in a top male professional, but not rare on the LPGA.